Still, there's an underlying quirk - if Koha sees a character it doesn't like in the 008 editing window, it skips over it and collapses the rest of the data. While the non # characters were originally in the correct place - once we touch that field in the editing window they are moved to a different position, and either ignored because they're not valid or dumped in the wrong place where they are valid, but incorrect. Of course if it didn't do this, we probably would have never noticed the # issue. Elaine On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM, Doug Kingston <dpk@randomnotes.org> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Galen Charlton <gmc@esilibrary.com>wrote:
Hi Elaine,
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Elaine Bradtke <eb@efdss.org> wrote:
Here's an example of the imported 008: 130515s2006####stka###gr#####000#0#eng#d
Just to confirm, for the migrated records, "#" in the 008 represents a literal hash character, not a space?
We are using a literal '#' (hash). Your question prompted me to check the MARC21 standard, specifically http://www.loc.gov/marc/specifications/specrecstruc.html where we find the following notacion on the documenation: *blank (SP).* ASCII character 20(hex) (represented graphically in MARC 21 documentation as [image: ASCII character 20 (hex)] or #), which is used in *indicators* and data elements containing coded values (and occurs in data content). Generally, blank stands for "undefined," but in some instances it has been assigned a meaning. ASCII name is space. So our MARC is has # where it should have ' '. We'll fix this and re-evaluate this problem. This interpretation is not obvious from the specification.
-Doug-
How important is the 008 field in the long term? I know it does influence a few display and search functions in Koha.
In my view, in general it's worth going to some effort to maintain the 008s, as the information encoded in them is either not to be found anywhere else in the record, or if it is, is in the form of free text that can cause indexing indigestion. For example, I'd rather grab the primary language from the 008/35-37 than have to parse language names.
Regards,
Galen -- Galen Charlton Manager of Implementation Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts email: gmc@esilibrary.com direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 skype: gmcharlt web: http://www.esilibrary.com/ Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org & http://evergreen-ils.org
-- Elaine Bradtke Data Wrangler VWML English Folk Dance and Song Society | http://www.efdss.org Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1 7AY Tel +44 (0) 20 7485 2206 (This number is for the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London, England. If you wish to phone me personally, send an e-mail first. I work off site) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registered Company No. 297142 Charity Registered in England and Wales No. 305999 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" --Elvis Costello (Musician magazine No. 60 (October 1983), p. 52)